Blog

The global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is changing faster than news stories can be written and published. The virus has brought almost every major system to challenges perhaps never faced before. Healthcare. Finance. Food service. Transportation. Education. In the span of a few days, the coronavirus crisis took us from thousands of kids […]

Kids learn Spanish every day.  They learn it in elementary classrooms, in play groups, and in day cares.  They learn it with Pepe the brown dog in Stories.  But kids learn Spanish in specific ways, under specific conditions, and if those conditions aren’t met, language acquisition simply won’t happen.  That’s the science. Still, myths swirling around […]

If you follow us on Instagram or use our Accelerate program, it’s no surprise to you that here at Calico we’re huge fans of multilingual and multicultural children’s literature.  We love bilingual children’s books, and we love them even more when they’re all in Spanish, and we love them even more when they’re culturally authentic. […]

Answer: They’ve changed. All three of these are examples of language changes in recent years, at least in Spanish.  Thus, they’re the three biggest changes we made in our recent rather significant update to Calico Spanish Classic for Schools, our beginner level for elementary Spanish teachers. Alphabet changes In 2010, the RAE made some changes to the alphabet. […]

Happy Mom’s Day! We recently saw an adorable Mother’s Day “My mom and I” printable activity in English.  We love these activities and thought it was such a great idea we’d do something similar in Spanish. In ours, we’ve featured some of our Stories characters with their moms and grandmothers.  Here at Calico Spanish, we are moms […]

Especially for early novice learners, culture can be a tough topic to cover in depth, beyond the infamous “Five F’s“: festivals, food, flags, fashion, and famous people.  Throw in the fact that interculturality standards for language classes can’t be met outside of the target language, and it gets tougher.  Throw in a situation where the […]

Are you looking for more content to help you show Spanish greetings and introductions to your learners? GREAT NEWS! After recently uploading one of our first non-song videos in a long time, we’ve just added FIVE more, and we think that you’re going to find them super useful and that your learners will love them. […]

How can an activity sheet that requires writing be made effective for kids who can’t read or write? Multi-sensory is certainly the way to go when teaching all ages of learners, but especially very young ones.  Games? Yes!  Songs?  Oh, yeah!  Play-doh?  Why not?  Children learn language better when they can experience it in many […]

In the world language education field, elementary teachers would certainly win in a competition for most variety in situations.  This one has 30 minutes per week and a total of 620 students, that one has 90 minutes per week with 270 students, this one has 7 home languages represented in a single classroom, that one […]

Cultural items like food are just some of the ways that #langchat participants are using authentic resources in their classrooms. “Authentic resources can be anything from the target culture that exercises their senses, from visuals to food,” newcomer @weslotero explained during Thursday night’s #langchat. While many teachers know the value of using authentic audio and […]